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First post here guys. Been lurking for a little bit and gleaned some info, but I finally have a question for you.......
My Dad has a 1983 Ranger 2WD. It's just a beater truck that will be driven around on our property to be a light duty work truck.
It has, for all I can tell, an '85 2.0 engine.
It's being resurrected after sitting for a couple of years. I've replaced lots of things, rebuilt the carb, tune-up, etc. etc.
It's a hard starter after it warms-up and it's caught on fire a couple of times.
We finally traced it to the distributor. I pulled the cap off and the wires were melted and barely hangin together.
From the outside, it appears to be a single vacuum advance model.
But, after comparing photos on the O'Reilly website, the body itself looks to be a DUAL vacuum advance model with a single vacuum advance canister on it.
Could I order either one? If I got the dual vacuum unit....could I just plug the extra vacuum nipple and be done with it?
Go to your Ford dealer, they can tell you for certain what dist. goes on the 85 2.0. I still believe with the 2.0 being the absolute base motor in 83 thru 88, that the single vac. adv. dist. will be quite adequate. The 2.0 equipped trucks were very simple and changed little over those years.
The dual diaphragm distributors were equipped to both advance and retard. The timing would be retarded at idle by one and advanced at speed by the other. If you are doing a 'farm truck' that won't see the road, I'd be putting a single advance on there.
The easiest to install would be from a 1974 pinto or mustang. The ONLY year that had a points ignition. That is BASIC. I believe they had a single advance for the 49 state version, but don't know diddly about the CA version. From 1975 onward, they had electronic ignition of various sorts.
tom